


An unlikely mission

by Hypatia_66



Series: Diamonds under African skies [1]
Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (TV)
Genre: Africa, Challenge Response, Community: section7mfu, Gen, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-26
Updated: 2018-03-26
Packaged: 2019-04-08 10:01:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14102964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hypatia_66/pseuds/Hypatia_66
Summary: A journey takes the UNCLE agents to a Garden of Eden with attendant serpent (or birdsnake?)…With no roads to speak of in the wilds of Africa and no direction signs; with streams and rivers to cross without bridges; with always a nagging fear of breakdown miles from anywhere – as with shipwrecked mariners at sea, if you find anyone in that situation you stop to help





	An unlikely mission

**Diamonds under African skies, part 1. An unlikely mission**

 

The elderly vehicle was cranky, and its gears tended to jam. Illya, a kindred spirit and master of the double-declutch, was driving because he alone could coax it out of its stubborn resistance. Napoleon, a map in one hand, a compass in the other, tried to give directions to the mission station. The light was blinding, the dust asphyxiating, the heat nearly intolerable, and then the engine started to smoke. Illya pulled up and got out. He bent over the engine, his language raising the temperature considerably.

“What’s wrong?”

“Radiator is leaking, engine has overheated,” he said, abandoning the required definite article of his adopted language. “Have we passed water lately?”

“You might have, my friend, but I haven’t,” Napoleon replied, looking at the map. Illya groaned, as much at the pun as the fact.

Nearby trees promised a cooler position in which to sit and think. It seemed unlikely that any other vehicle would pass – there were no recent tyre tracks – and they could get no signal for their communicators, nor at the moment for the radio. If they’d been near the diamond mines, they’d have been picked up all too quickly by Thrush, so they were slightly happier to wait.

oo000oo

They were still trying the radio when they heard the rattle of a vehicle and jumped to their feet as a cloud of dust came to a halt beside them. Napoleon stepped forward.

“Where are you going?” the driver asked.

Told they were looking for a mission station, he cried, “But ours is the only one around here, it must be ours. God has been kind to you!” It seemed they were the Italian missionaries they were looking for.

Collecting their belongings, they climbed into the truck beside their undoubtedly heaven-sent rescuers. One introduced himself as Fra Bonaventura, the driver as Fra Bartolommeo, who set off at a bone-shaking pace.

At some possibly divine, certainly invisible, sign they turned off the track and for a while followed another exiguous track until they reached the edge of a ravine. It seemed this was the only way, but the turn that would take them over the edge and down a narrow track looked lethal, and Illya looking at the sheer drop said, “Are you sure we have to go this way?”

“Si, certo.” Yes…

As they plunged over the side of the ravine, Napoleon said all the prayers he had learned in childhood, shut his eyes tight and watched his life flash before them... When he opened one eye cautiously, the vehicle seemed to be still upright, still moving – not quite as fast as before, thankfully – and still on the track. He glanced at his normally stoical partner. Even a brief sojourn under African skies had bleached his hair and burned his skin brown, but under it he was pale, which was no reassurance to Napoleon at all.

It was a long way down but at the bottom the valley opened out and there was a better track. After a mile or two, with the last of the daylight, the truck pulled up and they staggered out into the gathering gloom.

“Come,” said Bonaventura and led them into the cool of the mission. It had white walls and was very clean. They were shown to a spartan cell where an extra bed was crammed in, leaving very little space to move, but though hard the beds were perfectly comfortable and with washing facilities nearby, who was complaining?

The brother who showed them to the room said that chapel would be in less than an hour, and after it, dinner. “I bet it’ll be boiled beans,” said Illya gloomily when he’d gone.

He took first turn in the washroom. When he returned he lay down and said, “Wake me in time for chapel.”

“You don’t have to come.”

“No, but I will,” he said and closed his eyes. Napoleon grinned and went to wash.

The service was quite soothing after the trials of the drive so Illya was well-behaved, though his stomach was grumbling by now. Dinner, to their half-amused astonishment, was a totally Italian revelation: pasta with tomato sauce, followed by roast vegetables in olive oil and ending with fruit and cheese. And there was red wine.

“Where does all this come from?” said Illya, conversing in Italian.

“We grow everything ourselves – even wheat and olives.”

“And make all this yourselves, too?”

“Everything. You will see tomorrow – after dinner we retire for the night.”

oo000oo

Napoleon and Illya wandered out to explore in the cool of dawn and gazed around in surprise. Everything was under cultivation. A kitchen garden contained rows of vegetables and tomato plants, even a herb garden. In the distance, were vines, olives, wheat fields, and fruit trees. “It’s a small Garden of Eden,” said Napoleon, “Look, you can even have a fig leaf to cover your shame.”

“Don’t need it. Haven’t met or been tempted by the serpent yet,” said Illya, “or perhaps I mean the birdsnake.” He looked round as a bell rang.

“Time for chapel,” said Napoleon.

“Again?”

“Several times a day. Don’t you feel the need to give thanks?”

“Maybe after breakfast,” said the atheist, but he went along anyway.

oo000oo

At breakfast, they learned that the village people nearby had succumbed to some kind of magic and, under the influence of a dark spirit force, had beaten to death a poor disabled boy fearing he was a demon. After that, the spirit was said to have promised them safety if the entire population moved away.

Napoleon and Illya exchanged glances. “And the village is where the mine owners want to dig… is that it?” said Napoleon.

“Exactly.”

“How does the spirit force manifest itself?” asked Illya.

“It comes by night and visits people in their dreams. We believe they are using some kind of hallucinogenic compound, or gas. Gentlemen, they need your help – _we_ need your help, it may be our turn next.”

“What makes you think so?”

“The villagers have been warned against us.”

**Author's Note:**

> The route and the Italians’ ability to conjure their own cuisine from foreign soil are all perfectly true. Friends working for the UN in Africa in the 1990s once picked up some Italian missionaries whose vehicle had broken down. They took them on to their mission where they stayed overnight and were served a home-grown Italian meal. 
> 
> LJ Short Affair challenge. Prompts: gloom, brown
> 
> Tbc (if I hear what happened next)


End file.
